


Second Ending

by embarrassing old stuff from LJ pre-2015 (prevaricator)



Category: ROMES
Genre: Contains spoilers for the whole show, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-10
Updated: 2010-03-10
Packaged: 2018-10-15 19:55:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10556796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prevaricator/pseuds/embarrassing%20old%20stuff%20from%20LJ%20pre-2015
Summary: Sunamura is sent to London for training on an update to ROMES





	

**Author's Note:**

> Repost from LJ

**Second Ending**  
ROMES, Narushima/Sunamura (Ohkura's character/Yasuda's), pg-13-ish  
Romance-ish-thing, 2116 words  
WARNING: Contains spoilers for the whole show  
Summary: Sunamura is sent to London for training on an update to ROMES

A/N: Written mostly because it wouldn't go away. This may be the first fic I'm actually posting that I wrote over more than one day. I started it weeks ago, then watched an episode of ROMES and completely changed everything. Still iffy on characterizations. It's also entirely self-indulgent. I'm just proud of myself for not naming it "LONDONS" or "I See London, I See France"...

Airplanes were about the only thing that made Sunamura thankful that he was short. He winced in sympathy as the flight attendants urged the tall man in the seat next to him to sit down again.

Not that he was comfortable sitting for eleven hours. He sat watching movies on the video panel on the back of the seat in front of him for a while, then took a nap.

By the time he woke up for the last meal before landing, he was wondering why they couldn't just do this training session by webcam.

 

 

Sunamura stood in the arrivals area at Heathrow. He looked around for someone holding a sign for him, cursing his short stature. After craning his neck around lots of tall European men, he saw an Asian man with a sign that read, "SUNAMURA."

He found himself a bit disappointed that it wasn't Narushima. He was certain, however, that he would see Narushima before he returned to Japan. It was a training session for an update to ROMES, after all.

The man introduced himself as the Japanese interpreter for the session, then led Sunamura to the shuttle for the hotel he'd be staying at for the next couple days.

Hindel had set up a buffet dinner for the delegates from various airports and other clients coming to learn about the most recent updates to ROMES. Sunamura really just wanted to sleep when he got to the hotel, but he was worried that he would wake up hungry in the middle of the night, so he went to the dinner after dropping his things in his room. He chatted with the interpreter and the delegate from Kansai International Airport while he ate. He and the man from KIX commiserated about being sent all the way to London but not getting any time to do touristy things.

The two day training session started early the next morning, so they all dispersed fairly early to try to sleep off the jet lag.

Sunamura pulled a gift from his coworkers and a letter from Kanno's daughter, both for Narushima, out of his bag and placed them on the table in his room before he went to sleep.

 

 

In the morning, he arrived at the first training session and found that Narushima was to be the instructor for his group.

The group was composed of about 20 people, most of them not Japanese, however, and Narushima was instructing in English. It took a while for Sunamura to get used to having to listen to an interpreter to understand what Narushima was saying.

After an hour and a half of instruction, Narushima had them all try what he'd just taught them to do and walked around checking their work and answering questions. He said nothing to Sunamura the whole time, except to briefly inform him that he was skipping a step.

 

 

Sunamura was relieved when Narushima sat down across from him at lunch. He'd begun to worry that he'd somehow offended Narushima.

"Long time no see," Narushima said. "How's the airport?"

"It's doing well," Sunamura said. Things had thankfully calmed down considerably since Todo's arrest.

He felt a soft nudge at his leg and looked down to see a dog staring back at him.

"Haru!" He exclaimed. He reached down to pet her head.

They chatted through lunch, though Sunamura found himself doing most of the talking. By the time the meal was over, he'd told Narushima everything that had happened in his coworkers' lives in the past year and a half, but he had no idea what Narushima had been doing.

After lunch was more of the same training.

At dinner, Narushima sat with Sunamura again. This time, Sunamura found himself telling Narushima about his breakup with Mayuko.

Narushima seemed to perk up a bit when he mentioned that he'd broken up with Mayuko. He thought it was odd (and not a little mean), but by then he was used to Narushima's general lack of tact and just ignored it.

At some point Narushima commented that he missed Sunamura's coffee. Somehow, this snowballed into him dragging Sunamura to his apartment to make him make coffee.

Thankfully, it was only a short walk from the hotel.

 

 

The first thing Sunamura noticed about Narushima's apartment was that it was spacious.

The second thing he noticed was that it was empty. The few pieces of furniture were all large enough to fill up Sunamura's entire apartment, but their awkward arrangement made them look small. There was also no clutter, and no real place to hide clutter. He found himself wondering what Narushima did in his spare time.

The furniture itself was old and dilapidated, aside from a dog bed that looked completely unused. The reason for this was made clear when Narushima unclipped Haru's leash, and she made straight for Narushima's bed.

It felt cold, somehow. Normally well-used furniture gave things a homey atmosphere, but the more Sunamura looked at the couch, the more he was convinced that Narushima had gotten it used and had never sat on it once, himself.

It didn't help that it didn't really face anything. No TV sat across from it, no chairs sat facing it.

Overall, it gave Sunamura the impression that Narushima rarely had any guests.

Narushima snapped him out of his thoughts by grabbing his arm and pulling him to the kitchen. "Coffee," he declared. He shoved a coffee grinder into Sunamura's hands and pulled a bag of coffee beans out of his refridgerator.

Sunamura snorted as he ground the coffee, wondering if Narushima was even aware of how odd it was to make a guest make him coffee.

"So why were you the one sent to this convention?" Narushima asked abruptly.

Sunamura tried not to be offended by the implications of the question-- it would have made more sense to send one of the more experienced ROMES users, he knew. He was the second least experienced person in the section, next to the new guy hired to replace Yasaka.

He stared at his hands, in part to avoid spilling boiling water on them, but mostly to avoid making eye contact. "Kanno and the others all seemed to think you'd want to see me."

"Hmm," was all the response he got.

He poured out two cups of coffee and stood at the counter drinking it with Narushima. He was tired and wanted to sit down, but there was no table by the couch to hold his drink.

Narushima sighed happily. "I've missed Sunamura's coffee."

"I don't do anything special to it," Sunamura grumbled, poking idly at his cup where it sat on the counter and watching the ripples.

Narushima gave him a considering look and put down his coffee. Then he placed his hands on Sunamura's shoulders and leaned in to kiss him.

He smirked when he pulled away. "The coffee tastes even better on your lips."

The words seemed to unfreeze Sunamura, who had been standing still in shock. "You-" he began, but he couldn't figure out what to say after that.

Still smirking, Narushima leaned forward as if to kiss him again.

He ran.

 

 

He didn't get any sleep that night. His mind kept replaying the scene at him over and over.

The thing that scared him the most was that the most common thing to cross through his mind was that it had felt _good_.

The next day was the last day of the training session. He went to the morning's session with great trepidation. Narushima showed up five minutes late, but he didn't seem at all ruffled by the previous night's events. He instructed the group for a while, just as he had the day before. He walked around checking their work while they tried the tasks he'd just shown them how to do.

Sunamura's heartrate skyrocketed when Narushima bent over his shoulder to look at his computer screen. Narushima reached over his shoulder to tap a couple of keys. "Looks good," he said, and moved on to the next person down.

Sunamura's hands shook as he redid the tasks a few times to make sure he had them down.

Then it was lunch time. Avoiding Narushima there turned out to be easy, as several of the other representatives had questions for him. Not everyone had understood the directions, it seemed.

Sunamura chatted with the interpreter for most of the time. He glanced up once to find Narushima looking at him with an unreadable expression. Sunamura looked away quickly.

After lunch was more of the same, followed by an hour for general questions.

Narushima didn't sit with him at dinner, but he looked up a few times to see Narushima staring at him again.

He left dinner early and sat in his hotel room, thinking. The gift from his coworkers and the letter from Kanno's daughter sat on the table. The letter, at least, had to be delivered. With a sigh, he dragged himself up, and grabbed the items. He checked the conference rooms for Narushima, but everyone had left. So he found his way back to Narushima's apartment.

The door swung open too soon after Sunamura knocked for him to figure out what to say. Narushima gave him a funny little smile and looked at him expectantly.

He thrust out the gift and the letter. "This is from the ROMES team. Well, the box is. The letter's from Kanno's daughter."

Narushima took them and placed them on the table by his door, then returned to looking at Sunamura expectantly.

"Don't you have anything else to say?" He asked, when Sunamura didn't keep talking.

"How can you be so _calm_?" Sunamura blurted out, suddenly furious. He felt like he was a mouse and Narushima was a cat, batting him around between his paws, knowing all the while how it would all end.

Narushima sighed a little. "You still take things too seriously, Sunamura."

"You kissed me! I don't know about you, but some of us consider kissing to be a serious activity," Sunamura ranted. His hands formed fists at his sides.

But when Narushima stooped down to kiss him again, he just fisted his hands in Narushima's shirt and kissed back.

His mind raced with a million questions, but as Narushima pulled him inside and shut the door, he found that he didn't really want to know the answers.

 

 

He woke up some time the next morning, cursing Narushima's tiny single bed. He disentangled himself from Narushima and Haru, who had apparetly decided sometime in the night that there was plenty of room on the bed for two people and a dog.

He dug a receipt out of his wallet and scribbled a note on it. _Kanno wanted me to tell you that there's always a place for you at Tokyo Bay Airport, if you ever want one._

He glanced at the clock on his cell phone. It was five. He had plenty of time before his flight. He tugged on his clothes and sighed at the wrinkles they'd gotten.

Feeling stupidly sentimental, he made coffee for Narushima before he left. He tried to be quiet, hoping to avoid waking Narushima.

He was afraid he'd start crying if he had to actually say goodbye.

He left the note by the coffee and snuck out.

 

 

Back at the hotel, he took a shower, gathered his things, and left. He bought breakfast while he waited for his flight, and tried not to think too hard about things.

 

 

A month later, he awoke from a nap on his day off to a knock on his door.

"You know, some people consider leaving without saying goodbye to be extremely rude," Narushima said as soon as Sunamura pulled the door open.

Sunamura blinked. "What are you doing here?"

"I took a transfer to Hindel's branch in Japan," Narushima responded. He yawned and squeezed past Sunamura into the tiny apartment.

"Well, what are you doing _here_?" Sunamura persisted.

"I'm tired," was all Narushima said. He removed his shoes, dropped the small bag he was carrying by the door, and climbed into Sunamura's futon.

Sunamura shook his head in exasperation. "Where's Haru?"

"Quarantine for a few weeks," Narushima mumbled. "Standard procedure for international pets."

"Oh," Sunamura said. He considered the situation, then decided that his nap didn't have to end just because there was somebody else in his bed.

He walked over and lifted up the edge of the blanket. "Move over."

Sunamura gave him a cheery smile and did so, then pouted. "Your bed is tiny," he said.

"Then get your own," Sunamura grumbled. But somehow, he slept better with Narushima's arm over his shoulder than he had in years.

 

 

THE END. Now, does anybody know if there's any other ROMES fic out there? I sadly haven't seen any. ;_;


End file.
